


Just An Attraction

by phantomhivemast3r



Category: Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-04-12 08:31:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4472447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomhivemast3r/pseuds/phantomhivemast3r
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Riley thought that working at his friends’ new horror attraction would be a piece of cake. However, certain aspects of Fazbear’s Fright are not all that they seem to be… Time is quickly running out; the rabbit animatronic is getting more aggressive, and Riley must figure out what REALLY happened to the missing children of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. 6am couldn’t come soon enough… A take on the events of FNAF 3, as seen through the eyes of the unsuspecting “security guard” of Fazbear’s Fright.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Salvaged-Nights 1&2

**Author's Note:**

> *IMPORTANT* I started writing this before FNAF 4 was released, so some of the storyline presented in this work might not align with everyone's headcanons. However, everyone has a different theory, so I'm posting it anyway~ Enjoy!

** Salvaged-Nights 1 and 2 **

"Why, _why_ didn't I just keep my job as a pizza delivery guy?!" Riley Fritz moaned to himself, pressing the REBOOT VENTILATION button for what felt like the thousandth time that night. Glancing at the tablet on the desk directly in front of him, he noticed that the audio in the Party Room had stopped playing. Frantically, he jammed the AUDIO button on the keyboard as he simultaneously pressed the indicator for Camera 3; in this commotion, he knocked over the sandwich he had brought with him, as well as a few scattered papers.

"Shit!" he cursed, not daring to look away from the tablet; if his finger had missed that AUDIO button, he would be a dead man... But, to his great relief, he heard the familiar yet disturbing sound of a child's laughter echoing from somewhere far away.

In this brief moment of respite, Riley allowed himself to fathom just how exactly he had gotten into this predicament in the first place.

* * *

 

_Five Nights Earlier..._

A few months ago, two of Riley's best friends had gone to an auction for the infamous Freddy Fazbear's Pizza restaurant chain; the auction was to sell off whatever still remained of the old party equipment, animatronics, and other such things after the restaurant had been shut down a few years ago due to severe health code violations. Lo and behold, Riley's friends had come back with a haul of stuff, immediately calling him over to come and check it out.

"Who wanted some old, empty animatronic suits, anyway?" they had claimed. When Riley asked why, then, had _they_ decided to buy the supposedly worthless robot-puppet machines, his friends then revealed their plan to open a horror attraction based on the mythology and horrible history of the pizzeria.

It was to be named: _Fazbear's Fright: A Horror Attraction,_ and was to be an exact replica of the original establishment- with a few less animatronics and no horrible murders or maiming, of course.

"And since you already work for a pizza place, you can be the security guard of the attraction; it'll be a step up from delivery guy!" one of Riley's friends had said jokingly. At the time, it had seemed like a ridiculous idea that Riley thought his friends would _never_ be able to pull off.

However, to his great surprise, they had the old pizzeria re-built and re-wired within a few months. Soon, the newly converted attraction would be ready to open in a week, Riley's friends claimed; they just wanted to test it out first, to make sure that everything was in working order before the patrons arrived. And who better to do that than the new security guard?

And thus, after being assured many times that yes, he _would_ be paid for this job once the profits from patrons began rolling in, Riley showed up for his first shift at Fazbear's Fright. Though the ungodly hours from twelve to six am were draining, Riley was content to sit in the office checking up on the ventilation, audio, and camera systems. He found it odd that things were already failing before the place even opened, but he figured that he would just talk to his friends about it the next day.

"Something's messing with the electricity in that place, and we're not quite sure what... But don't worry!" they had assured him. "We'll get it fixed before the week is out!" Convinced and assured, Riley went back for a second night.

The night before, one of Riley's friends had called and gushed about how excited he was about opening the attraction, what cool things they were going to get, and blah, blah, _blah_...Riley had tuned him out after a while. However, this was his _second_ night on the job, and as Riley had begun to realize with his friends, they usually had some sort surprise up their sleeves.

Just as it had the night before, the phone rang at 12:10, and Riley put it on speaker so that he could focus on checking the systems.

"Hey, man, okay, I have some awesome news for you!" one of his friends said excitedly. Riley smiled but decided to remain quiet, letting his friend talk. "First of all, we found some vintage audio training cassettes... Dude, these are, like, prehistoric! I think they were, like, training tapes for other employees or something like that...

"So I'd like to have them, like, playing, like, over the speakers as people walk through the attraction. Dude, that makes this feel _legit_ , man!" Riley rolled his eyes, then heard an increasingly-familiar beeping sound; the cameras were failing again. He pressed the REBOOT button as his friend continued on.

"But I have an even _better_ surprise for you..." Riley gazed at the phone, raising one eyebrow as his friend chuckled. "You're not gonna believe this...

"We found one. A _real_ one. A, uh, ah- gotta go, man... w-well, look, i-it's in there _somewhere;_ I-I'm _sure_ you'll see it. Okay, I'll leave you with some of this _great_ audio that I found; talk to you later, man!"

"Whoa, whoa, hold up- _what's_ in here?!" Riley exclaimed, but his friend had already hung up. Riley stared at the phone, a vague sense of unease prickling at the base of his skull. The phone made a clicking sound, and then began to ring again. Thinking it was his friend, Riley once again put it on speaker. However, the voice that came out of the device was an unfamiliar one.

"Uh, hello? Hello, hello?" the voice said. "Uh, welcome to your new career as a performer/entertainer for Freddy Fazbear's Pizza! Uh, these tapes will provide you with much-needed information on how to handle/climb into/climb out of the mascot costume."

"Great," Riley muttered, rolling his eyes. "Just what I need; instructions on how to get in a suit that doesn't even exist anymore... Still..." He looked through the long window in front of him, and then through the doorway to his left, where the empty remains of a newer-model Freddy suit were hanging near the wall. It was, admittedly, a pretty creepy sight to see out of the corner of his eye. "At least listening to these tapes makes me feel like I'm not so alone in this place..."

"Right now, we have two specially-designed suits that double as both animatronic, and suit!" the guy on the phone said. "So please pay close attention while learning how to operate these suits, as accidents/injuries/death/irreparable or grotesque maiming may occur."

"Uh, ex _cuse_ me?!" Riley said to the phone, even though he knew the voice behind it was long-gone. "What the hell kind of suit was it, a freakin' Iron Maiden?!"

Still, the voice continued on.

"First, we will discuss how to operate the mascots when they are in animatronic form. For ease of operation, the animatronics are set to turn and walk towards sound; this is an easy and hands-free approach to making sure the animatronics stay where the children are for maximum entertainment/crowd-pleasing value."

As the phone guy was finishing up this sentence, Riley heard a thump come from somewhere in the attraction. Glancing at the tablet, he could have sworn he saw a shadow on the wall of Camera 9 before the picture fizzed out for a split-second.

That feeling of dread was slowly spreading from the base of Riley's skull all the way down his spine; unsure exactly _why_ he was doing this, he pressed the AUDIO button as he touched the Camera 9 display screen. The sound of a child's laughter echoed through the room, and even Riley could hear it softly from across the building. Shaking off the bad feeling, he attempted to listen to what the guy on the phone was saying about the animatronic suits.

"-change the animatronics to suit mode, insert and turn firmly the hand crank provided by the manufacturer. Turning the crank will re-coil and compress the animatronics parts around the sides of the suit, providing room to climb inside. Please make sure the spring locks are fastened tight, to ensure the animatronic devices remain fixed; we will cover this in more detail in tomorrow's session.

Remember to smile; you are the face of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza!"

The phone call clicked off, and Riley shivered; that suit just sounded like _bad news._ He wouldn't be caught dead crawling into one of _those_ things... He let out a small laugh; judging by that warning earlier, he probably _would_ end up dead if he tried it. Pulling out a bottle of water from his bag, he set to work checking the cameras for "suspicious activity."

A few hours later, there was another sudden thump; however, this one was _much_ closer than the last one had been. Riley glanced at the clock; it had _just_ turned to three am... he still had three hours to go. Choosing a random camera, which happened to be Camera 8, he hit the AUDIO button on the tablet, causing another round of child's laughter to peal through the empty hallways.

At least...they were _supposed_ to be empty. Staring through the window, Riley frowned; something didn't feel right. After rebooting all the systems at the same time for good measure, he stood up and walked to the open doorway, cautiously peering out into the surrounding hallways. They appeared to be empty, save for the Freddy head and torso hanging open-mouthed at a sideways angle. Riley debated fixing it, but decided that it was best not to leave the room in case the systems started to fail again.

As he turned and quickly ran back to the desk, he could swear he felt a pair of eyes on his back. Whirling around to face the hallway, he saw...nothing. Shaking his head, he looked down at the systems display; to his surprise, the ventilation section had an ERROR message next to it.

"That's probably it," he said to himself as he re-booted the system. "The guys warned me that I'd start seeing things if the ventilation failed; it's just because this place is so damn creepy... I mean, seriously, did they _have_ to make the walls look 'authentically weathered?!'"

He continued muttering to himself as he re-booted the camera systems and picked up the tablet again. Playing some audio in Camera 10 just to have some sort of noise in this desolate place, Riley once again felt as if someone were watching him. However, the feeling quickly went away as he played the child's laugh again, this time near Camera 2, a room close to the one he was currently in.

"What the hell's going on...?" he wondered aloud as he re-booted the cameras when they began to flicker. He picked up the tablet again and was met by the horrible sight of a withered face with large, staring eyes. Screaming, Riley threw the tablet onto the desk, not caring at the moment whether it could potentially break from the force of the throw.

To his utter shock, the same face was now in front of him, attached to a mutilated, child-sized figure with what appeared to be a pinwheel atop a once-striped hat. The thing lunged, and Riley covered his face with his arms, throwing himself back against his chair with such force that he rolled into the wall behind him. He expected to feel the hands of that _thing_ any second, but when nothing happened, he slowly lowered his arms.

There was, to his utter confusion, absolutely nothing there. Breathing heavily and shaking slightly, Riley quickly glanced at the ventilation. Indeed, the ERROR message was blinking with a blindingly unfriendly red light; this, Riley presumed as he re-booted the system, was the cause of his delusion. He looked at the clock; four am. Only two more hours to go, and then he would be able to leave this place and talk to his friends about what was going on.

Technically, he thought to himself, he could leave now if he _really_ wanted to. However, Riley was the type of person who stuck to their word once they had given it, and since these strange occurrences seemed to be happening due to the improper ventilation, that was the only true threat. He could surely make it another two hours.

Ninety minutes later, Riley was growing _very_ weary of all the failing systems. That terrifying child-thing had appeared again, making him nearly jump out of his skin. Luckily, he was able to regain his composure rather quickly and fix the ventilation. But, just as he did that, the cameras began to fail and he had to re-boot those...then, the audio would go and it would all repeat in an endless cycle.

At five-fifty, Riley was about ready to call it quits. That was when he began to feel the eyes on him again. As he had done countless times before, he stared out into the hallways surrounding the room he was in; as was also the case countless times before, nothing was there. Shaking his head, he pulled up Camera 9 and played some audio in the room farthest away from him.

At precisely five-fifty-seven, Riley realized that it was not just his mind playing tricks on him; he actually had _not_ been alone in the attraction all night.

After rebooting the systems one last time and checking the cameras, Riley placed the tablet on the desk; he didn't think his friends would mind if he left three minutes early. As he grabbed his bag and swiveled his chair around to face the doorway, preparing to stand up and get the heck out of that place, he cast his gaze at the empty Freddy suit.

Letting out a shriek, Riley noticed a figure peering at him around the left side of the doorframe. All he could see was the head of what appeared to be a grotesque, rotting rabbit costume, with half-lidded eyes and a gaping smile. This thing looked _very_ different from the withered child delusion that had been occurring when the ventilation failed. Additionally, to his surprise, the rabbit thing was _not_ lunging at him. It was just standing there...waiting.

This unnerved Riley more than the delusion-child. He figured that the best thing to do was to _not_ take his eyes off of this thing; something about the way it was looking at him unnerved him so much that he was trembling and clutching the flashlight attached to his uniform in a death grip. This thing seemed almost...intelligent, like it was sizing him up and figuring out the best way to take him down.

Riley began to sweat; he didn't know how much longer he would be able to keep up this staring contest. As his breathing quickened, he could swear that the rabbit-thing's smile widened.

Suddenly, just as Riley was about to hurl the flashlight at it and run, a bell rang throughout the building. The creature in the doorway twitched violently, and then the light in its eyes went dark and it sank to the floor in a heap. Cautiously, Riley stood up and walked over to it, shining the flashlight on it as he went out into the hallway.

It was indeed a rabbit, although its golden color detracted from this impression. It appeared to be life-size; tilting his head sideways, Riley thought that he might just be able to fit inside of it. Not that he had _any_ inclination to try, however... The suit was torn and rotted in places, and the top of the right ear was missing. There were also exposed wires in various places along the body, and the feet were entirely devoid of the fur-like covering; they seemed to be metal cages that a human's foot could fit inside. Riley thought that he could see something off-white inside the feet, but it was too dark to tell.

He shivered; this must have been what his friend meant when he said "We found a _real_ one!" It was a real animatronic; obviously one of the older models, due to the extreme wear and tear, but an animatronic nonetheless.

"Gee, guys, you couldn't have picked a _less_ creepy one?" Riley muttered, nudging it with his foot. He jumped and let out a squeak when the animatronic twitched and said in a low, robotic voice:

"W-w-welcome to Freddy Faz-Fazbear's Pizza!"

"Ugh...," Riley cringed; he didn't like this thing one bit. Figuring that there was nothing he could do about it at the moment, he left it lying in the hallway and exited the building, walking a bit faster than usual.

As the door slammed shut behind him, the animatronic twitched once more and said, in an echoing voice much more human-sounding than the one before:

" _I'm finally free..."_


	2. Stay Calm- Night 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riley is back for his third night at Fazbear's Fright, armed with his strong will and information about the past horrors of the Fazbear Pizzeria chain. Just when he thinks he finally has the hang of his new job, an increasingly-familiar face decides to pay him a visit...

** Stay Calm-Night 3 **

Before his third night's shift at Fazbear's Fright, Riley decided to do a little digging into the history of the pizzeria chain. He knew that there had been a few... _problems_ in the franchise's long history, but he never expected anything as gruesome as the things he came across. While looking through old newspapers dated "1987," he came across a few articles that described an incident in which one of the animatronics “malfunctioned” and bit someone on the head, actually severing their frontal lobe. From what he could tell, the person survived, but that incident got that particular establishment closed down.

However, while this was definitely an unfortunate circumstance, the chain of events that Riley came across next sent a piercing shiver straight through his heart. At the very first pizzeria, the one that the tapes detailing how to use the animatronic suit had come from, a child had gone missing. It was presumed that the child had been murdered, but nothing had ever been proven. A few years later, at a new location, five more children went missing. The police pieced the two events together and assumed that all six children disappeared at the hands of the same person; one of the security guards was even arrested and charged for the crime.

But, due to lack of evidence and a convincing testimony, the police concluded that they had arrested the wrong man and set the guard free. No one ever found out who the killer was (and the term "killer" was used a lot, for everyone assumed that those children were definitely deceased), and he was supposedly still at large.

As soon as he finished his research trip to the library and downed a cup of coffee, Riley gave his friends a call.

"So, were you ever going to tell me that six kids were _murdered_ at the freakin' pizzeria?!" Riley exclaimed as soon as the line was picked up on the other end. His friend laughed nervously.

"Dude, I thought you knew!" he said. "That's the draw of the place; the fact that the killer was never caught, and people say that the souls of those dead children used to roam the halls of the pizzeria late at night... It's a _horror_ attraction, after all!"

"...Seriously, man?" Riley sighed exasperatedly. "You know that stuff creeps me the hell out..."

"Yeah, but it's not like any of that is _true_ ; I mean, come on-dead ghost kids? Get real, Riley."

"Yeah, well, even if the kids themselves aren't roaming around, that damn rabbit thing was!" Riley shivered as he remembered the animatronic's grotesque face. "Why was it _on?!_ You _know_ I'm the only person in that place!"

There was a pause on the other end of the line. Riley was beginning to wonder if the phone call had been cut off, when his friend said:

"Riley...we didn't turn it on."

Riley frowned.

"But...it was wandering around. I heard its footsteps all around the attraction, and it actually came to my room and stared at me for a good few minutes...That golden rabbit _was_ what you wanted me to see last night, right? The thing you said you picked up yesterday?"

"It was, but I'm telling you the truth, man; we did _not_ turn that thing on." Riley's friend sounded mildly concerned, and Riley himself could feel his heart rate beginning to speed up. This was all getting too weird.

"Could it have, I don't know, maybe turned on by itself?" Riley asked.

"I suppose...," his friend replied. "I mean, we _did_ have to transport it; some of the wiring could've gotten knocked around in the back of the truck and re-booted the animatronic's systems or something."

"Oh, speaking of re-booting the systems-"

"Oh, hey, I gotta go, man," Riley's friend cut him off. "I'll play another one of those tapes tonight. If you see that rabbit walking around, would you mind taking a look at it and trying to turn it off? I don't want it to run out of juice before the attraction is open to the public!"

"Wait, I wanted to-"

"Thanks, man! Bye!" There was a click, and Riley was left with nothing but silence and growing sense of frustration. Why was it _his_ job to make sure everything, including the creepy animatronic, were working properly? He was only the security guard after all... and he wasn't even a real one at that.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Riley realized that he would only have to sit through this for three more nights (four, if he included this one), and then he could politely decline the offer of continuing to be the security guard when the attraction actually opened.

Stopping at the nearby sandwich shop in the way, Riley headed off to his third night at Fazbear's Fright.

***

When he eventually made his way to the security office, Riley noticed that the rabbit thing had moved. This didn't concern him, however, because he assumed that his friends must have stopped by and moved the animatronic back to wherever it had come from.

Hopefully, it would stay off that night.

Setting aside his sandwich for later on during his shift, Riley glanced at the SYSTEMS log. As of that moment, everything seemed fully functional; he wondered how long it would take for things to start failing again. He also wondered if the rabbit animatronic would pay him another visit... If that thing stayed out of his way, Riley saw no point in making an effort to go find it and turn it off.

Now that he knew what had been making that creepy thumping noise, Riley actually felt a little better about not being completely alone in this place. To add to the feeling of having more people in the attraction, Riley's friends had promised to play one of the old audio tapes detailing how to work the ancient animatronic suits. Sure enough, a few minutes after twelve the phone began to ring.

"Uh, hello, hello? Uh, for today's lesson we will be continuing our training on proper suit-handling techniques," the voice on the speaker said. Riley rolled his eyes; great, just what he needed to learn- how to operate a suit that was already moving on its own. He settled back in his chair and listened.

"When using the animatronic as a suit, please ensure that the animatronic parts are tightly compressed and fastened by the spring locks located around the inside of the suit. It may take a few moments to position your head and torso between these in a manner where you can move and speak. Try not to nudge or push against any of the spring locks inside the suit!

"Do not touch the spring locks at anytime. Do not breathe on the spring locks, as moisture might loosen them and cause them to break loose. In the case that the spring locks move while you are wearing the suit, please try to maneuver away from populated areas before bleeding out, as to not ruin the customer experience."

"...What the hell _is_ this?" Riley said, staring at the phone with a mixture of confusion and horror on his face. "Who in their right mind would design a suit that could kill you if you _breathed_ on it?!"

"As always, if there is ever an emergency, please go to the designated safe room," the phone guy continued, despite Riley's comments. "Every location is built with one extra room that is not included in the digital map layouts programmed into the animatronics or security systems. This room is secret to customers, is invisible to animatronics, and is always off camera.

"As always, remember to smile; you are the face of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza!"

The message clicked off, and Riley was still staring at the phone, slightly open-mouthed. He heard a beeping noise and glanced at the tablet- all the cameras were now online.

"'Please try to move away from more populated areas before bleeding out,'" Riley quoted as he checked the ventilation systems. "They definitely had some messed-up priorities at this place...no wonder it got shut down, like, three times."

Leaning back in his chair and placing his feet on the desk, Riley set the tablet in his lap and got to work checking the cameras. After about half an hour, as expected, the systems started to fail. Rolling his eyes, Riley re-booted the AUDIO, and then played that creepy laugh in the farthest room away from him.

According to the phone call from the night before, the animatronics responded to sound; this must be why had had been equipped with that old audio from one of the previous mascots. If the rabbit was getting too close for comfort, he could simply play the laughter in the other room to fool it into thinking that that was where the children were, and it would leave him alone.

It wasn't until three am that things began to get _very_ strange once again. Riley had come to expect the demented child-like thing to occasionally pop up every now and again when the ventilation began to fail, so it came as no surprise when he saw the withered face staring back at him from his tablet screen. Shutting his eyes, he quickly placed the tablet back on the desk and, ignoring the inhuman screeching from the child hallucination, felt around for the control panel. Grasping it firmly, Riley opened his eyes and pressed REBOOT ALL.

Sighing with both relief and annoyance, Riley shifted his gaze towards the window and let out an involuntary yelp.

On the other side of the window was what appeared to be a large bear, wearing a small top hat and holding a microphone. It was walking slowly, with very jerking movements, and did not appear to notice Riley's presence- something that the false security guard was extremely grateful for. Holding his breath, fearing that any sound might attract this bear's attention just like it would the rabbit's, Riley gripped the arms of his chair and waited for the animatronic to leave.

When it got to the center of the window, the bear suddenly ducked down and out of sight. Riley frowned and slowly released his breath.

"Is it over...?" he questioned to no one in particular. Then, suddenly, the bear appeared directly in front of him and launched itself at Riley's face, screeching in the same way that the child-thing did. Riley screamed and instinctively covered his face. However, also just like the child-thing, the bear disappeared instantly without causing any damage to Riley or his surroundings.

"W-what?!" Riley said, cautiously lowering his arms. Glancing at the systems, he noticed that, surprise, the ventilation was once again failing. Pressing the REBOOT button a little harder than was necessary, Riley let out an annoyed growl and mumbled: "Eff you, Freddy."

A little over two hours later, it was just past five-thirty am and Riley was about ready to give it up for the night. He had tried his best to remain calm and not let the hallucinations get to him, but soon after Freddy Fazbear appeared, his lovely friends Chica and Foxy also paid Riley a visit. For the past few hours, the four hallucinations had been alternating who showed up when the ventilation began to fail.

This constant source of stress was taking a serious toll on the false security guard. Because he was afraid that he would be scared and choke the moment he tried to take a bite of his sandwich, Riley was starving and running very low on energy. This was the main fact that he attributed to the arrival of the rabbit-animatronic.

When Riley placed the tablet down to check on the systems, he realized a few seconds too late that he had forgotten to play audio in a far-away room of the attraction. He quickly pressed the button that allowed the child's laughter to echo throughout the building, but it was too late; within a few seconds, he heard an ominous thumping noise. Trying to control the involuntary shivers that had begun to wrack his body, Riley turned towards the doorway as the rabbit animatronic peered around the corner.

"...H-hello?" Riley said in a rather questioning tone. Though he knew it was merely a robot (well, half-robot according to the audio tapes), this thing still gave him the creeps. Its eyes glinted in an unnerving manner, and its smile set Riley's nerves on edge.

The last thing he expected the rabbit animatronic to do was to respond to his greeting, which is why Riley nearly fell out of his chair when the half-missing teeth parted and from the mouth came a soft:

_"Hello."_

Riley gulped. The voice sounded distinctly _not_ -robotic...

"Uh, can you...can you actually understand me?" Riley asked. Obviously, the animatronics had to be programmed to respond to the customers in _some_ way, but there had to be a limit to their pre-programmed responses. Maybe this thing would sound more robotic if it talked some more- after all, it had been locked away for years and years. Something had probably happened to its voice box.

"That's a silly question, young one," the animatronic responded. Riley's eyes widened; this thing actually appeared to understand him. This was more unsettling than the fact that it was walking around on its own.

"I-I'm not _that_ young." Riley said this quietly, but the rabbit's large ears picked up on it.

"To me, you are." It straightened up so that the entire suit was illuminated in the doorframe by the lights in the hallway behind it. The rabbit tilted its head slightly. "May I come in? I _do_ adore being around people..."

Riley vehemently shook his head, quickly glancing at the clock. It was five-forty-five; he had to last another fifteen minutes with this thing.

Suddenly, the animatronic twitched violently, and Riley saw a few sparks come out of the exposed wires. After a few tense seconds in which Riley's hand hovered over the phone, ready to call 911 at a moment's notice, the animatronic stopped twitching and focused its gaze on the false security guard.

"Forgive me," it said. Riley noticed with slight confusion that the animatronic's tone was very... _soothing_ wasn't quite the right word, but it was close enough. Riley gripped the flashlight tucked into his belt; he had a sneaking suspicion that if he let his guard down, the rabbit could somehow convince him to do something he didn't want to do...like let it into the room.

"My systems are a bit...rusty. I've been locked in that room for _so_ long-"

"What's your name?" Riley cut the rabbit off; he wasn't in the mood for a recount of the past few decades. The rabbit flexed a hand and then brought it up to touch his chest, with surprisingly fluid movements. Riley thought that being locked away for years and years would have made the animatronic jerky and hard to move about, if anything.

"You may call me 'Springtrap,'" it said. Riley raised one eyebrow.

"What kind of name is _that_ for a kids' character?" he questioned.

"I created it myself."

Riley shook his head slightly; there was no way this animatronic could be thinking for itself. When it was made, the idea of artificial intelligence was no more than a sci-fi dream. Even in the present day, there had yet to be an AI invented that could respond in the manner that Springtrap was responding (at least to Riley's knowledge). It unnerved him how much the rabbit seemed to be thinking on its own.

"...And why did you pick _that_ name?" Riley questioned. He figured that he might as well keep the thing talking. The one complete ear atop the rabbit's head tilted downwards.

"Let's see if _you_ can figure that out," Springtrap responded. Riley finally stood up and walked around to the front of the desk; he still had an ample amount of space between him and the animatronic, but that didn't change the fact that Springtrap was blocking his only escape route. He looked at the clock.

Five-fifty-five.

"So, um...what's your specialty?" Riley asked; if he kept the animatronic talking, he just might be able to make it to six am without it coming into the room. Springtrap tilted its head slightly, as if he did not understand the question. Riley tried to explain. "You know...Like, Freddy is the singer, Chica is...well, the back-up singer, and Bonnie plays the guitar. I'm not really sure what Foxy does, but...uh...what do _you_ do?"

Springtrap let out a barking noise that Riley assumed was meant to be a laugh; it made the false security guard wince.

"I don't have a particular talent," the rabbit animatronic responded. He slowly glanced down at his feet and then locked gazes with Riley, sending a shiver up the boy's spine. "This suit has always been too... _problematic_ to do anything special with."

"Oh." Riley frowned; something about that sentence didn't seem right. He took a step closer to the animatronic and then froze, realizing that it was probably not a good idea to go any closer until he could scope the thing out. Still, he couldn't let that careless comment slide.

"Did you just talk about the _suit_?" he asked. Though Springtrap was both an animatronic _and_ a costume, the "costume" aspect was certainly not in use at the current time; this meant that whatever the rabbit was doing was based solely on its animatronic programming.

So why would it refer to itself as a "suit" instead of an "animatronic?"

Springtrap was silent for a few seconds, and then started making that disturbing, barking laughing noise. Riley quickly backed up so that he was directly in the center of the room and far away from the animatronic. As the laughing grew louder, the rabbit began to shake; the movement began in the shoulders, much as a human would move if they were laughing very hard. The shaking then spread throughout the rabbit's body until each limb appeared to be twitching with a series of jerky movements.

Just when Riley was debating whether he should test his luck and try to push the animatronic out of the way and run, it suddenly froze and dropped to the floor. A half-second later, a familiar chime rang throughout the attraction, signaling that it was now 6am.

"Thank Freddy freakin' Fazbear," Riley muttered, exhaling the large breath he had been holding and gripping the fabric of his shirt over his heart. Not taking his eyes off the rabbit laying on the floor, he grabbed his things and cautiously stepped over the unmoving animatronic. When he was safely over the threshold of the doorway and out into the hall (with a clear escape route), he gave the rabbit a light kick and then jumped back, holding his flashlight out in front of him threateningly.

However, Springtrap was completely still.

Shaking his head in confusion and sheer disbelief at the situation he had gotten himself into, Riley spared the animatronic one last glance as he left the building.

Just as he was rounding a corner that would put Springtrap out of sight, he could swear that he heard the robotic noise of the rabbit's eyes turning to follow him.


	3. It's Been So Long- Night 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Equipped with a new defense mechanism and more information about the past of Freddy Fazbear and crew, Riley is ready to tackle his fourth night at the horror attraction. At least, until an unexpected conversation puts him completely...off-guard.

** It's Been So Long-Night 4 **

Riley walked into Fazbear's Fright clutching his backpack tightly with one hand and brandishing his flashlight in front of him with the other. It was his fourth night at the horror attraction, and he had resolved not to take  _any_  crap from the animatronics, whether they be hallucinations or Springtrap peering around the doorframe. Rounding the corner that revealed the long window looking into his office, Riley noted that, once again, Springtrap was no longer where it had fallen the night before. However, due to his conversation with the surprisingly outspoken animatronic the night before, he had a feeling that it had moved  _itself_  out of the way...

To his relief, Riley made it to his office with no incident. He knew that he didn't necessarily  _need_  to rush around the corner so fast that he lost traction on the floor for a split-second and nearly slammed into the empty Freddy suit hanging in the hallway, but he wanted to be at that desk well before twelve am.

It was, in fact, eleven-fifty when Riley was fully settled in his chair. He quickly wolfed down his sandwich and a cup of coffee, knowing that he would probably not have time to eat and didn't want to risk spilling a beverage all over the electronic monitors. He didn't even want to  _think_  about what would happen if he fried the REBOOT function...

Just as he was throwing the empty cup into the trash can by his side, the phone on the desk began to ring; it was now twelve am.

"Uh, hello? Hello, hello?" the familiar voice said as the pre-recorded message began to play on speaker.

"Yo," Riley responded absently, since there was nothing better to do at the moment than talk to a voice from decades ago.

"Uh, there's a slight change of policy concerning the use of the suit! Um...don't."

Riley frowned; the guy sounded very...stressed at the moment.

"After learning of an unfortunate incident at the central location involving multiple and simultaneous spring lock failures, the company has seen the suits temporarily unfit for our employees. Safety is top priority at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, which is why the classic suits will be retired to an appropriate location while being looked at by our technicians."

"W...what?" Riley questioned, staring wide-eyed at the phone. "You mean the death-trap suits actually  _did_  hurt somebody?!" Of course, the phone guy couldn't answer his question and continued to speak on his own train of thoughts.

"Until replacements arrive, you will be expected to wear the temporary costumes provided to you. Keep in mind that they were found on very short notice, so questions based on appropriateness/relevance should be deflected.

"I repeat, the classic suits should not be touched, activated, or worn. That being said, we are free of liabilities- do as you wish.

"As always, remember to smile; you are the face of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza!"

"I highly doubt the poor guy in the 'spring lock failure' suit cares about  _that_ ," Riley muttered at the phone call disconnected. He pressed the AUDIO button and let the child's laughter sound in the far-away party room. "They were just  _asking_  for a lawsuit with those things...I mean- aww, crap, you're  _already_ here?!"

The withered child was staring back at Riley through the monitor. As he placed the tablet on the desk and rebooted the ventilation system, only jumping slightly when the thing lunged at him, Riley recalled that the child was actually named "Balloon Boy," and it was one of the mascots at the early Pizzeria locations.

During the extended research that he had done before his shift that night, he found that there were actually "newer" versions of the main animatronics in the third official Pizzeria site. For some reason, the management of the restaurant chain had decided that the animatronics needed a new look, and set to work creating an alternate brand, using the old animatronics for spare parts.

While Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica had been largely unchanged with regards to their placement on stage and their robotic personalities, management had brought out a very old animatronic known as "The Marionette" that reportedly only responded to a certain music box. Additionally, they had added "Balloon Boy" and good old Foxy had been unceremoniously replaced with a newer fox animatronic that could be taken apart and put back together by the children visiting the Pizzeria. Because of how disheveled it would be at the end of every day, the employees referred to it as "The Mangle."

However... for some reason, management thought it would be a good idea to leave Mangle  _on_  as the children were playing with it, and, as Riley had correctly guessed right before he read the corresponding article, Mangle had in fact been the one responsible for biting someone on the head in 1987, causing severe brain damage.

Things at that particular location had quickly gone downhill after that, and that Pizzeria was shut down. When it was re-opened in a new location a few months later, management had done away with everyone except the original Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy: the crew that was now haunting Riley's delusions throughout his six-hour shift.

"Shit!" Riley exclaimed when Foxy managed to catch him by surprise. Angrily slamming the REBOOT ALL button, Riley glanced at the clock and groaned; it was only three-thirty. He didn't know how much longer he could last- despite only having six hour shifts, the disturbing hallucinations and the creepy Springtrap had been keeping Riley awake anytime he tried to get some rest outside of work.

Suddenly, Riley heard an unfamiliar noise. He paused mid-swivel as he was turning his chair back to the tablet and remained still, listening intently. The noise appeared to be coming from...the ceiling?

"Oh,  _hell_  no!" Riley yelled, looking up at the vent situated almost directly over his head. Grabbing the tablet and moving out of the way, he remembered that there was in fact a camera in each of the vents; he flipped the tablet screen to the closest vent and saw none other than Springtrap staring right back at him, a grin plastered across its rotting face.

Horrified, Riley slammed his hand on the button that would seal off the vent. He knew that this would only make the ventilation systems fail faster, but there was no  _way_  he was going to let that rabbit drop right on top of him. Holding his breath, Riley listened again. There was silence for a moment, and then he heard the animatronic retreat away from the room.

"T-this is _not_  okay...," Riley muttered, releasing his breath and sitting back in his chair. Not only was Springtrap too smart for the era it was made in, but it was surprisingly aggressive; the thing must  _really_  want some attention if it was going to crawl through the  _vents_  just to get to him.

The fact that Springtrap could now reach him from every angle unnerved Riley enough that he slipped up once again and played the audio too late. Luckily, this happened towards the end of his shift and, even more important, Springtrap was running towards the doorway instead of through the vent, which meant that the false security guard would be able to see it coming.

This time, to Riley's surprise, the animatronic decided to come from the other direction, and therefore passed by the long window at the front of the office. Riley saw him appear and tried to stare the rotting rabbit down as long as he could, but the failing ventilation forced him to look away and he saw the streak of gold run past the window out of the corner of his eye.

"H-Hello again," Riley said, quickly placing the monitor back down as Springtrap appeared in the doorway. The rabbit animatronic's grin widened, and Riley could swear that  _something_  was behind those faded teeth...but he assumed it must just be the robot's endoskeleton.

"Hello, young one," Springtrap responded, once again in that _non_ -robotic voice. Riley frowned.

"Why do you sound like that? ...Er, can you actually answer that question?" He scratched the back of his head absently. "That might be beyond your programming..."

"Is there something wrong with my voice?" Apparently, this question was  _not_  beyond the animatronic's programming. Riley found this ability to respond to every question he posed increasingly concerning.

"It's just-oh,  _crap_." Riley heard the aggravating beeping noise of a system failure. He knew that taking his eyes off of Springtrap was probably a bad idea, but he'd rather look away for a second than pass out for much longer because of a lack of air. Glancing at the systems, he saw that it was in fact the cameras that were going berserk. He quickly jammed the REBOOT CAMERA button and looked back up at the golden rabbit in the doorway. To Riley's relief, the only way that Springtrap had moved was to stand up straight and tilt the one fully-formed ear downwards slightly, as if confused.

"It's a lot of work being the security guard here, heh heh," Riley said, chuckling nervously. While the animatronic's voice put him on edge, Riley felt even  _more_  uncomfortable if it was silent; the false security guard always felt as if the rabbit was analyzing him...or sizing him up.

"Is it, now?" Springtrap's tone seemed strangely condescending. The ear raised up straight again and the rabbit tilted its head slightly.

"Yes...?" Riley responded, though it sounded like a question. The robot could certainly put a lot of emotion in its voice.

"You've only been here for...three nights before this, yes?"

Frowning, Riley nodded.

"...Then you certainly have no idea of what being the guard is  _really_  like."

Riley simply stared at the animatronic, trying to understand the meaning behind those words. When the rabbit failed to elaborate, Riley sighed and said:

"Look, I'm...pretty busy. Is there...something that you want? I could...I could play that laugh again; you seem to like that-"

"I  _hate_  that incessantly aggravating laughter!" Springtrap quickly snapped back. He flexed a rotting hand, as if demonstrating that his extreme dislike of the child's laugh could cause physical repercussions. Riley gulped and, without taking his eyes off of the rabbit, felt around the systems log until his hand landed on the REBOOT AUDIO button, which he pressed forcefully.

"Oh, well...I have to test it out, you know," Riley said, his tone a bit desperate. He didn't like the way that the rabbit was glaring at him. "I have to make sure it works in all of the rooms, and...such..."

"...Of course you do." Springtrap narrowed his eyes and took a step towards the guard, making Riley quickly grasp the tablet and wheel his chair backwards a few inches.

"Hey, whoa...why don't you, uh, stay over there?" Frantically, he gestured with one hand to the open doorway, using the other arm to tightly clutch the precious tablet to his chest.

"It's been  _so long_  since I've been able to walk around, let alone speak to someone that wasn't a voice inside my head...and now you want me to simply  _leave_?" Springtrap let out a dark sort of chuckle. "You're such...interesting company, Night Guard. I've never seen a human tremble so much."

"'H-Human?!'" Riley repeated, trying unsuccessfully to control the terrified tremors that were beginning to wrack his body.  The closer proximity of the animatronic was setting off alarm bells in his mind, but there was nothing he could do to get away; it was still blocking the door, and, curse his parents' unfortunate genes, Riley was too short to reach the vent above him, even if he stood on the desk.

The animatronic paused mid-step, as if realizing that it had said something unusual. Slowly placing its foot back on the ground, one ear twitched as it said:

"...Malfunction. I meant to say 'friend.'"

Riley couldn't hold back the barking, terrified laugh that bubbled up and escaped his throat. That last sentence had been the final straw; he wasn't sure  _how_ , but Riley knew that this animatronic obviously had some sort of...special personality that was able to respond to anything that he said.

"Malfunction, huh?" He looked the robot dead in the eyes, and stood up, still gripping his tablet. "...That's complete bullshit."

This time, both of the rabbit's ears twitched.

"Now, now, that isn't the sort of language we use here at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza...," it said, softly, keeping its gaze level with the guard's. Riley heard a beeping noise and mentally cursed; this was  _not_  the time for a system to fail...

"Oh, cut the crap," he said to the animatronic, trying to put up a tough front despite the new set of tremors preparing to overtake his body. "Your voice is...wrong. It sounds too... _human_."

"You must be mistaken." The tone of Springtrap's voice had changed; it now sounded like it was  _trying_  to make it's scarily human-like voice sound robotic. "I am your favorite friendly bunny; would you like to be friends?"

"Not after you tried to crawl through the freakin'  _vent!"_  The beeping was getting louder, and the emergency lights began to flash red. Speaking of vents, Riley realized that he had never re-opened the one that the animatronic had tried to crawl through earlier that night.

 _Shit,_  the false security guard thought, his vision beginning to haze over. He felt an increasing desire to close his eyes and take a little nap...

"That was simply another malfunction," Springtrap responded in that same fake robotic, almost mocking tone. Riley could swear that its eyes flashed.

"It was  _not!"_  the guard argued. He didn't know how long he could keep this up. He had the tablet in his hands, but in the commotion of being startled he had accidentally changed it to one of the camera screens instead of the system control panel. There was no way he could switch it without looking down, as he was not quite familiar with the placement of that particular setting enough to find it simply by touch, and he was hesitant to let even a second pass with his attention diverted from the creepy animatronic.

Springtrap was silent for a few seconds, before its mouth opened in a wide grin. It said, back to its normal, low voice:

"...You're right. It was completely intentional."

And with that, it lunged for the guard.

Letting out an embarrassingly high-pitched scream, Riley dashed around to the other side of the desk. He lost traction on the slick, tile floor and there was a split second of complete terror in which he pitched forward, almost falling onto the tablet. However, he quickly managed to right himself and position his body so that it was at the opposite corner from the rabbit.

The lack of ventilation was making his breathing extremely labored. Quickly, oh so quickly, Riley glanced down at the tablet and jammed the SYSTEMS button, then hit the REBOOT VENTILATION one when it appeared.

While the guard was doing this, Springtrap was slowly making its way around the desk. It was taking slow, deliberate steps, as if it were trying to play some perverse game of two-person tag.

"Don't you want to play, young one?" it asked in an almost eerily soothing tone, as if it were talking to a scared child. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"That is one of the biggest lies I've ever- _get_   _the hell away from me!"_  Riley screeched the last part of his sentence as the rabbit made another sudden lunge. Logically, Riley thought that it would be very slow and  lumbering due to its side and lack of maintenance. However, the animatronic was surprisingly fast, and the guard was barely able to move out of the way before it tried to grasp the fabric of his uniform.

Clutching the tablet tightly to his chest, Riley dashed out of the room, his heart beating fast. He knew that all of his stuff was still in the office, but at the moment, he was more concerned about not getting caught by the crazed animatronic. As he rounded the corner, past the empty Freddy suit, he took a second to glance through the long window into the office.

Springtrap saw him staring back through the window and rushed up to it, slamming its hands on the glass and letting out a horrifyingly in-human screech. Riley attempted to cover his ears to the best of his ability; it sounded like a cross between a human and a robotic scream, similar to the sound the hallucinations made when they jumped at him... only this was  _much_  more intense.

 _What the hell is it, what is it, what_ IS _it?!_  Riley mentally repeated as he took off down the hallway, heading for the party room. If the fact that it could respond instantly to whatever he said, and with its own personality no less, wasn't enough to convince Riley that Springtrap was  _not_  a friendly animatronic, that screeching noise was. It was obviously something completely different that Riley didn't understand...nor did he necessarily  _want_ to.

He and the animatronic played a terrifying, one-sided game of tag for the next hour. Riley realized that, though he could hide for a short amount of time, eventually the rabbit would wander into the room that he was in, attracted by the shuffling of feet or Riley's increasingly-labored breathing. However, the guard could lead the aggravated animatronic away by playing the child's laughter in another room; he had to be careful, though, for if he played it in a room too far away from their current location, Springtrap wouldn't respond to the audio cue and continue his search for the guard.

At five forty-five, Riley finally decided to give up and leave early. He cautiously made his way towards the nearest emergency exit and, thankful that the automatic alarm system hadn't been hooked up yet, pushed open the door as quietly as he could. Just as he did so, an inhuman screech sounded from a hallway to the right; Springtrap's thundering footsteps were heading right for the guard. Yelping, Riley rushed out the door.

"Aw, crap!" he exclaimed after he was a good twenty feet away from the building; he had forgotten to close the door behind him! Now Springtrap was loose in the streets, free to frighten any unfortunate passerby that might come across it. Turning back towards the doorway, Riley mentally debated his odds of survival if he went back to close the door.

To his surprise, instead of being right on his tail, Springtrap was simply standing in the doorway, staring after the frightened guard. It was almost as if he was...stuck; there seemed to be an invisible barrier that prevented the animatronic from leaving the attraction.

"Well, at least they got _one_  thing right with the robots' programming...," Riley muttered to himself. Grinning with relief, he gave the sneering Springtrap a salute, turned on his heel, and headed home, beginning the mental debate of whether it was worth his life to spend another shift at Fazbear's Fright.  


End file.
